[center][h1]Lieutenant Commander Johann "Rhino" Von Brandt[/h1][/center]

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[color=lightblue]"See that Sab? Your excuse to hassle people has been ruined once again."[/color]

Johann smirked over the rim of his coffee cup, finishing the last of it before pouring himself another cup. Leave it to the Commander to be thinking several steps ahead on the rip-gel situation and supply, though from what he knew about Sab it wasn't the supplies but the principle of the matter. Her theatrics pretty much confirmed that, exaggerated accent and excessive gestures added to the comedy of the situation as far as he was concerned. As she rolled into the status report, he glanced out the window at the well timed bursts of AA fire visible even in this hidden little camp. Lot of them relied on speed and bursts of flight to make do where they insisted on abandoning armor. Yes, he might preach that the best defense is to never need the armor, but he also didn't like the idea of removing armor for the sake of speed. Still, as she wrapped up her own status report, Johann chimed in.

[color=lightblue]"Nothing that could get through the Secutor's armor, additional or standard, made contact so she'll be ready once they replace the plates, unsurprising I know. Even if they did, the FRS would work wonders in getting everything back online. Might want to give up a few ticks of speed for at least standard plating Sab. I'd suggest Kilmer get some too, but that's even less likely to stick as far as suggestions go."[/color]

Johann snorted as Sab once again complained about a whole month of not getting to make people's lives difficult. What a tragedy.

[color=lightblue]"Give it a few hours and I am sure Command will have all sorts of opportunities for you vent your frustrations on the Coalition. Far more constructive, and who knows, maybe you can pick something up besides a bruised ego from getting swat out of the sky?"[/color]

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If there was one thing Sab was good at, Johann had to concede, it was complaining. At least that eventually came to a merciful end once they were called into a free supply vehicle with the comms officer to start filtering through situations and assistance requests. Ensign Dole, a nervous wreck of a comm officer if he ever met one, began stuttering through three of the first options available to them currently. The first one was most suited to Secutor in its current configuration, and would help alleviate the problem of not being able to properly maneuver for long distances in the air. Not useful to him, but immensely so to both others in the squad as well as the war effort as a whole. No direct links to the nanoforge, but freedom of mobility would make future strikes far easier to carry out. Plus paying back the Helldogs was a nice bonus, on top of it all, so that was the option he currently favored.

Option two was practically absurd to suggest, but Johann at least considered it. UEE spook wanted a bunch of MAS pilots to go in on foot to tap a network, steal as much information as they can and get out, all without raising an alarm ideally. Sure, compared to most pilots they were a lot better on foot, and if he remembered it right Hex used to be a boots on ground type anyways, but that didn't exactly leave them a lot of room to work with. Project Forge seemed a bit blatant, even for the Coalition, so he was willing to call that bait. Let Command find some actual infantry spooks to handle the situation and let the MAS pilots continue doing what they actually were good at, piloting. Even if cracking the odd Coalition skull on foot was a tempting thought in isolation.

Option three was an odd one, since the suggestion was to try and sneak behind lines while Helldogs hit a facility as cover, jammer included. Tricky thing those, especially ones that just drowned out everything, though a solution was in place for them at least. Get in, ideally unnoticed, take out the power generator and fight out of the counterattack. Not a bad option, especially since robbing the Coalition of power had good return on investment, but again came back to the fact that he was about as subtle as an orbital strike. He would mostly be in reserve, letting the others slip forward and create openings for Secutor to fit through, metaphorically speaking, before they hit the core and bring the grid down. 170mm should work wonders on that, even if the recommendation was plasma or missiles. Yeah he could throw a PG-01 haymaker at the thing, but being in huffing distance of the core when it went up would be unwise. Still, at least it wasn't going in on foot.

[color=lightblue]"Good ears kid, picked out some interesting choices. I'd recommend Options one or three personally, ideally one. Hard to hide Secutor from anything frankly, so a lot of the trouble in Blackout would be us getting in all subtle like. Strike is probably my choice, free up not just aerial movement, but more support from air and orbital assets. Plus with some clever spotting from Hex, I can send some half charged shots at the convoy with the 170mm, put some plunging proxy fuse on them to hit em at the starting line."[/color]